‘You and Geraint were getting on like a house on fire the other night!’ she told me, stopping just short of getting her phone out to show me his Facebook page. ‘He’s really funny. And he loves the theatre.’
I gave her a scornful look. ‘Loving the theatre’ was something people only ever claimed to do on internet dating profiles, and even then only in London, I’d noticed. You never met anyone in, say, Ross-on-Wye who claimed to love the theatre, and yet they probably went as often as the average Londoner.
‘What’s that got to do with the price of fish? I don’t love the theatre,’ I reminded her. ‘I saw The Lion King once, and that was only because Sam got too many tickets from that agency and Laurence made us all go, so as not to waste them.’
‘The theatre’s a brilliant place to go for a date,’ she said. ‘It’s somewhere new, you don’t have to talk, you can discuss it after – it’s good to get out of your comfort zone.’
‘What is so wrong with having a comfort zone? The clue’s in the name. Anyway, I’d rather take up hill-walking. And you know how I feel about that.’
‘But Geraint’s a great—’
‘Helen, it’s really sweet that you’re trying to pair me up, but can you stop doing it, please?’ I broke some heart-shaped shortbread in half and grimaced at the symbolism. ‘I’m fine as I am. I don’t need a boyfriend. I’m focusing on work.’
‘No, but there are men out there who need the joy of your company.’
‘At least keep your cheesy compliments credible.’
‘What are you doing on Valentine’s Day?’ she asked.
‘Why?’ I could see the awkward shape of a double date looming into view.
‘I was thinking Wynn and I could arrange another get-together at the pub and invite a load of single people, so it would be a nice low-pressure way of mingling. Not just romantically,’ she added, ‘it’s always good to broaden your horizons. You know how hard it is to meet new people in our line of work – anyone you meet’s already spoken for, by definition. And it’s a numbers game. Mr Right could be a friend of a friend of a friend.’
‘How do you know I don’t already have a date?’
Obviously, I didn’t. I just didn’t like the assumption that I was at such a loose end that I’d be grateful for dinner with a man who liked the theatre, or a singles night in a pub.
‘Do you?’ Helen seemed surprised. Then she peered more curiously at me. ‘Do you?’
‘I might,’ I said airily. ‘I might be at that delicate stage of a relationship where I want to keep things very much under my hat.’
She looked at me a second longer, then reached for a second biscuit. ‘You’re not, though. You’re going to be working.’
‘How do you know that? Have you seen the rota?’
‘I don’t need to. You always are. Even more so now you’re living over the shop and Laurence is paying you overtime to camp downstairs at the reception desk.’
I could hardly deny that, but Helen wouldn’t give up, even when I collected the mugs and climbed off the fire escape back into the plusher environs of the fourth floor. She was still extolling the joys of ‘singing with friends and letting yourself go!’ when the lift pinged and let us out into the hotel foyer. We could have gone down into the bowels of the earth and she’d still have been going on about it.
‘… need to recalibrate your expectations about men,’ she finished. Finally.
‘You’re done?’
She nodded, and before she could start again, I said, ‘Helen. Please don’t make me spend Valentine’s Day singing Tom Jones classics with the Clapham Leek-Fancying Association.’
‘Sounds fun,’ said Joe, wandering past with an armful of tablecloths. ‘Open to anyone?’
‘Joe!’ Helen seized on him with a bold look at me. ‘Have you got plans for Saturday night?’
‘Er, Saturday night?’
‘It’s Valentine’s Day,’ I reminded him. ‘Isn’t it marked in your calendar?’
‘Oh, Valentine’s Day,’ he said with an unusual amount of wariness.
Joe, like me, had had a lot of enforced dating attention from Helen over the past few weeks. In an unguarded moment over the kettle one evening, he’d confided that he was starting to understand how the pandas in London Zoo felt, but without the privacy of a cave to hide in.
‘Because if you’re not doing anything,’ Helen went on, with the determination of a zookeeper armed with a bag of aphrodisiac-laced bamboo, ‘my sister’s flatmate Kate has got a spare ticket to Hamlet at the Barbican that she’s trying to get rid of—’
‘So Kate’s very keen on the theatre, too?’ I asked. ‘I had no idea you moved in such thespian circles.’
Helen ignored me. ‘—and maybe you’d like to go? She’s very nice.’
‘I’m sure she’s very nice,’ said Joe. ‘But even if I wasn’t doing anything, which I am, Hamlet’s not my thing.’
‘I know. It’s not exactly a date-night play,’ I pointed out. ‘Family feuding, ill-advised second marriages, two of the unfunniest funny men in the whole of English literature. And the bride goes mad and drowns herself.’
Joe gave me a funny look. ‘I am familiar with the play, thank you. Anyway, why would I want to go to the theatre when I can watch all that happen in the comfort of my own home?’
‘Oh, you two,’ said Helen with a playful swipe; then she turned serious again. ‘But have you got a date for Saturday, Joe? Because I was thinking of having a party …’
He gave me a quick sideways look, and I said, ‘Don’t look at me, I’m going out.’ I don’t know why I said that. I ignored the slight intake of breath from Helen. ‘I booked the night off ages ago.’
Joe paused for a second, then said, ‘Good for you. Me too.’
Helen looked intrigued. ‘Who’s the lucky girl?’
‘Yes, who?’ I realized I was staring, and coughed.
‘Sorry, I thought I just had to book the night off with Dad, not with the romance committee,’ said Joe. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to talk Flora out of releasing a hundred London pigeons as she and Milo say their vows.’
‘And how are you going to do that?’ I asked.
‘I’m going to agree with her that it’s a brilliant visual spectacle, then ask how many umbrellas she thinks she’ll need to protect her fashionable guests from stray pigeon poo. It’s very lucky,’ he added. ‘Pigeon poo.’
I nodded. ‘You should probably feed them beforehand to ensure it’s a very lucky wedding. Maybe you could suggest that? Then, as a back-up plan, obviously, suggest white rose petals scattered from the windows above the courtyard. Easier to clean away and they smell less of old chips.’
Joe pointed at me – an annoying habit months of effort hadn’t yet broken (though he was now wearing a more normal, if brightly coloured, shirt instead of his surfer ones) – and grinned. ‘What a team. I’ll let you know what she says.’
Helen and I stared after him as he loped down the corridor towards the lounge bar where most of his meetings with Flora took place. She was finding it particularly hard to decide on her signature cocktail for the exclusive after-party, and kept making appointments to try new ones.
‘I wonder who Joe’s got a date with?’ Helen mused. ‘Not … Flora?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said. If Joe was seeing someone, he’d been doing it very quietly. We didn’t exactly live in each other’s pockets upstairs, but I certainly hadn’t noticed him making any calls or texting anyone. He hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone. Should he have? We talked about quite a lot of other things.
I realized I did feel a bit … funny about it, actually.
Helen grabbed my arm as if she’d just thought of something. ‘Oh! Rosie! Do you think it’s someone from America? A girl?’
‘Caroline says there wasn’t a girl in America,’ I said at once.
Although there had been that moment at New Year’s when clearly something was going unsaid at the mention of that one perfect person …
>
The burning sensation in my chest increased. What if he had met someone? And he brought her back? The bedroom walls were, as I may have mentioned, very thin.
If even Joe found someone …
‘Then it must be someone new.’ Helen’s eyes widened. ‘Maybe someone he’s met at a wedding? Or one of Flora’s bridesmaids? There’s a whole string of them turning up with Flora to try cocktails with him in the bar …’
‘I really don’t think so!’ I said, and my voice was so high Helen gave me a strange look.
I didn’t have time to think about stuff like this. I had weddings to sort out. Registrars with flu to check up on. Extra chairs to order. ‘Sorry, I mean I don’t know. And, no, before you ask, I’m not going to hang around the flat waiting to see who turns up.’
‘Of course not,’ said Helen. ‘You’ll be on your date, won’t you?’
I didn’t know what I could politely say to that, so I smiled tightly and marched off to deal with the reported broken headboard in the honeymoon suite.
*
Obviously, I didn’t have a date for Valentine’s night but there was no way I was going to let Joe know that, or Helen.
Instead, once my bride and groom had been safely waved off in their taxi to Heathrow, and their few remaining guests discreetly handed over to the clutches of Dino and his cocktail cart of delights, I’d planned a date night with myself. I’d be able to relax properly in the flat for the first time: Joe was going to be out on his mystery date, and Laurence was due for his regular monthly night out ‘with his bridge friends’ at their club in Mayfair.
Part of my New Year, New Me resolution included a full overhaul of my beauty regime. I’d splurged on various treatments brides had told me about over the years, including a hair treatment that the girls in the spa downstairs insisted would turn my hair into a gigantic mane to rival Flora’s, and a facemask made with Swiss mud. While it was all working, I’d got a box set of a Danish crime drama I hadn’t had time to see when everyone else in the country was watching it.
And then I planned to have an early night. I hadn’t had one of those in months.
Joe was already in the bathroom when I let myself into the flat after handing over to the night manager. I could hear him splashing around, making his usual mess. I could also smell him applying liberal amounts of aftershave and deodorant, which only made me feel grumpier and weirder.
I didn’t want to see him come out of the bathroom in his towel, all fresh and hopeful, while I was the Last Singleton in London, so I went straight to my room, got changed, and waited until the flat door slammed shut. Once the whistling had died away, I dashed into the bathroom, slapped on the face mask, combed the conditioner through my hair, got my DVD and a bottle of wine, and settled into the old leather sofa.
This was actually nicer than going on a date, I thought, flicking through the opening credits. I wasn’t stuck in an overpriced restaurant, being forced to make conversation while trying not to make eye contact with all the other couples. I didn’t have to eat any squid, or think of anything amusing to say about the menu.
Best of all, I could now watch the whole of The Killing without Dominic complaining about the errors in the translation even though he didn’t speak Danish, or making sarky comments about the plot.
That alone, I thought, happily topping up my glass, was worth the price of the box set.
*
The problem with Danish crime dramas, it turned out, is that you really have to concentrate on the subtitles. After two episodes, I was so focused on the subtitles that I wasn’t prepared for the unexpected movement in the very outer corner of my eye-line, exactly like a Danish murderer sneaking up on an unsuspecting victim.
‘Aaaargh!’ I squeaked involuntarily.
My heart gave an almighty thud and I jumped off the sofa as if it were on fire, while the remaining wine in my glass arced up, and then down in a perfect curve over the carpet.
‘What the hell is going on?’ yelled a familiar voice. ‘Urgh! I am covered in – Jesus, what have you done to your hair? And Jesus Christ! Your face! Are you all right?’
I stared, panting, at Joe. He was wearing his running clothes.
‘I didn’t hear you come in. I thought you were on a date,’ I said accusingly.
‘No, I said I was going out. I’ve been out, for a run, now I’m back. You were the one on a date.’
I could feel myself going red under the face mask. ‘Did I say that?’
‘Yes.’ He glared at me. ‘You did.’
‘But … I heard you in the bathroom.’
‘Well, we’re not the only people who live here.’
I felt a bit ill. I’d just sat and listened to my boss, singing in the bath and applying deodorant.
There was an excruciating pause, and then a wry smile twitched the corner of Joe’s mouth. ‘I guess you’ve been out and come back too?’
‘That’s right.’ I lifted my chin and a few flakes of dried mud peeled off. ‘It was … a cocktail date. Finished early.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Joe. ‘So, what are you watching?’ He picked up the DVD box. ‘Oh, is this that Scandinavian murdering thing everyone’s been talking about? I’ve been meaning to watch that. Mind if I join you?’
I realized, belatedly, that having dismissed Helen’s offers of Hamlet, we were, in fact, settling in to watch Danes killing each other, and wondered if Joe had noticed too.
He didn’t show it if he did. ‘Brilliant … Want me to ring the kitchen and see if they’ll do some room service?’
‘Why not? It’s only their busiest night of the year.’ Joe really had weird blind spots about the hotel business.
‘Brilliant.’ He rubbed his hands, then said, ‘Don’t take this personally, but do you think you could go and wash whatever you’ve got on your face off? I don’t want to feel like I’m watching it with the murder victim.’
I narrowed my eyes at him. Comments like that were probably a good thing. They reminded me that, despite the more frequent flashes of sensitivity, he was still the same fundamentally irritating Joe underneath.
*
I’d got up and was heading towards the bathroom to rinse my hair and chip away the remains of the facemask when I heard him call, ‘Rosie?’
‘What?’ I braced myself for some comment about my ‘skin condition’.
Joe gazed at me from where he was standing beside the wall-mounted phone. He looked embarrassed and conspiratorial at the same time. ‘We won’t tell Helen, will we? About the … dates?’
I paused. ‘Well, technically …’ I stopped.
‘What?’
Should I say it? I heard my own voice in the flat. ‘Technically, we are on a date. Of sorts. I just can’t tell her who with. And neither can you.’
There was a pause; then a slow smile broke over Joe’s face.
‘Secret date,’ he said, and pointed at me. ‘I like your thinking.’
My stomach did an unexpected loop, but then I was very hungry.
*
Kevin sent up a pizza with parma ham, mozzarella and extra sarcasm half an hour later, and Joe and I polished off a bottle of wine and four episodes of The Killing. He was a much better co-watcher than Dominic.
‘Sorry you’re having such a crap Valentine’s Day,’ he said, when the fourth episode ended. ‘Pizza and DVDs with your annoying intern.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ The wine and the pizza had made me mellow. ‘It’s better than last year. Anglo-Afghan fusion in Old Street, and an argument with the chef about whether calling cocktails after weaponry was in bad taste. We left in a taxi, but I remember feeling relieved at the time that it wasn’t a police car.’
‘Ha.’ I liked Joe’s laugh. It was more of a snort than a giggle.
‘How does this rate on your Valentine’s Day scale?’ I asked.
‘Hmm. This time last year I was drinking mimosas and playing pool with the most—’ He stopped, and looked at his empty glass. Then he filled it up again.
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My chest felt hollow. I hadn’t expected him to say that. I’d expected him to say something about parachuting naked across the Grand Canyon for the fun of it. So there had been a girl. Of course there had.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘With the most …?’
Joe stared at his wineglass.
‘I won’t tell Helen,’ I added. ‘I’m pretty good at keeping secrets. You have to be round here. Who were you playing pool with?’
Joe hesitated a few seconds, then said, ‘With the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. We met at a party on the beach. It sounds cheesy, but I remember thinking she was just like a mermaid. She had the most amazing hair …’ Joe mimed long, wavy hair, a lost expression on his face. ‘I remember thinking it was just like the bonfire, red in some lights but blonde and darker as well. Damp where she’d been swimming in the sea. Everyone out there’s tanned, but she was pale, with freckles on her arms. She was the only girl at the party who wasn’t wearing a tiny bikini, but no one was looking at them, just at her, in her long white dress …’
Something tugged inside me – I wasn’t sure what it was. Jealousy? It was the way he was talking about her. As if he could see her right now, in here, with us. Not jealousy of her and Joe, just of the impression she’d made on him. I longed for someone to talk about me like that.
‘And did you talk to her?’ I half-joked.
‘Of course I talked to her.’ Joe was miles away, on the beach. ‘She was funny. And she had the most incredible eyes. Green eyes.’
‘And what happened?’
‘She told me she’d never been surfing, so I offered to teach her. We went surfing, we went hiking, we did everything together.’
‘And then?’
There was a longer pause. ‘And then she finished with me.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was all going really well, we were spending loads of time together, every day, and then suddenly – prttph.’ He made a flat gesture. ‘I’d been planning a trip, we were going to go surfing, and she just … said she couldn’t do it. Never saw her again. Blocked my calls, everything. No idea why.’